A five-year legal war between a trucking company and a neighborhood has come to an end.

The Nov. 13 shuttering of New England Motor Freight's Georgetown Road location has ended the courtroom battle with the neighboring Greater Bloomfield Community Association.

The trucking company, which immediately abutted the residential community of Bloomfield, and the community group had fought in court over the company's plans to extend its property.

The expansion would have created nearly 250 more truck parking spaces, and would have brought the motor freight's property within 30 feet of Bloomfield residences.

The case had been sent back to the Board of Appeals last year, and the next hearing was scheduled for Dec. 3.

It had been heard by the Baltimore County Zoning Commissioner, the county Board of Appeals, Baltimore County Circuit Court and the Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis.

J. Carroll Holzer, the community association's attorney, said that he is unsure of how the closing will affect the impending court date, but that he is "pleased that the operation is not only not expanding, but is in fact leaving the site.

"We certainly are hopeful that we can get a property owner who is more conducive and more appropriate for the community," he said.

The trucking company's lawyer, Scott Barhight of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston in Baltimore, could not be reached for comment.

Peter Filipowicz, an Elkridge resident and manager of New England Motor Freight's Georgetown Road location, said the closing was unrelated to the ongoing legal battles.

It was "strictly an economic move," he said.

Filipowicz said the company will now operate out of its two other Maryland locations, in North East and Hagerstown.

"Business has decreased in the past couple years with the economic downturn," he said. "Like a lot of truck companies, we're struggling to make a profit."

Filipowicz said about 40 of the 60 Georgetown Road employees will relocate to the other locations.

He said the company decided to close the Bloomfield location because it best allowed the company to "handle all of our customers with no interruption of normal service."

Lorna Rudnikas, who founded the Greater Bloomfield Community Association specifically to fight the expansion efforts, said she is proud of the community's persistence and determination.

"We were up against Goliath, and we were definitely David," she said. "In the end, I'm so proud to be a member of that tiny community who just dug in and said, 'no.' "

Rudnikas said the community association initially met with members of the trucking company and asked them to consider extending their property away from Bloomfield toward Caton Avenue.

She said the expansion toward Bloomfield could have presented problems for the Bloomfield residents, including decreased property value, health problems and noise disturbances.

Ultimately, the association took the motor freight to court on two counts: its plan to expand, and for possessing unused land.

Through background research, the association discovered that Wilson Motor Freight, which previously owned the land, had left a portion of the property vacant for two consecutive years in the early-1980s. According to Maryland law, a business can be evicted from property that was at any point in its history left unused, said Rudnikas.

"We never really wanted to run them out of town initially," Rudnikas said. "They just put our backs against the wall. We had no choice."

Now that the company is vacating the area, Rudnikas said the next step is to bring in a business that would provide the county with a tax base.

She said she is trying to coordinate a meeting with local politicians to ask them to arrange for the development of office buildings, or something else that, "opens at 9 and closes at 5, something that will be compatible with the living conditions in our small community.

"What we're trying to do now is create a win-win situation," she said.

---

user comments (0)